Concert by Deep Purple | |
Location | Europe, South America, Oceania, Asia, North America, Middle East |
---|---|
Associated album | Rapture of the Deep (2005) |
Start date | 17 January 2006 |
End date | 25 May 2011 |
Legs | 26 |
No. of shows | 385 |
Deep Purple concert chronology |
The Rapture of the Deep tour was a worldwide concert tour by British hard rock band Deep Purple.
It took place in support of their 2005 studio album Rapture of the Deep. It is supposed to be one of the most successful and long-lasting tours the band has ever done. In 2007, it was voted #6 tour of the year by listeners of the Planet Rock radio station.
In 2005, Deep Purple released the Rapture of the Deep studio album which enjoyed a modest success, especially in Europe where it charted Top 20 in several countries.
In support of their new studio album, Deep Purple embarked in a world tour during which they covered five continents and played in more than 50 countries. They did over 28 legs in Europe, UK, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Australia, playing almost 500 shows in six years. Venue sizes varied from big concert halls to the world's largest arenas and stadiums.
During the tour, Deep Purple headlined several of the world's biggest festivals, including:
Although some fans called the 2010 leg simply "World Tour" (since at that time only one song from Rapture of the Deep – the title track – remained in the set list), Don Airey, the band's keyboardist, said it's still the Rapture of the Deep tour.
The Rapture of the Deep tour kicked off with an intimate sold-out show at London's Astoria hall, and quickly moved on to a sold-out European tour, booked in the continent's biggest arenas.
After two sold out shows at Argentina's Luna Park Stadium, the band played one festival date in Chile and after a one-month break they moved straight to Australia. The 10 dates on the Australian leg proved to be extremely successful; tickets sold out very quickly and promoters had to add more dates. The band sold over 50,000 tickets for the Australian leg and moved to Japan with 5 concerts.
A second huge European leg followed in summer. Deep Purple kicked it off with the extremely successful gig at Milton Keynes Bowl, in front of over 50,000 people. Besides the single shows, they played many festival dates as headliners, such as Sweden Rock Festival (attendance: 50,000) and Montreux Jazz Festival. The Montreux show was recorded professionally and later released on CD/DVD called They All Came Down to Montreux. The European leg lasted over 6 months and they played Europe's biggest arenas, all sold-out.